"You didn't answer his question," said Carl, who had sat Sastol on the ground with his hands on his head.

"No, I didn't," said Lellan.

"What are you going to do?" Carl asked.

Lellan grinned. "Well, I've been the rebel leader for long enough, and now I don't think there's much more I can do for the rebellion. I intend to head out there" — she pointed into the night — "to get hold of this Ian Cormac, and the others, and find out what the hell is happening."

"We'll be coming with you," said Beckle, closely inspecting the sight of the rail-gun.

"I didn't doubt it for a moment," she replied.

"We will also be coming," said two voices simultaneously.

The prisoner, Sastol, stared with bewilderment at the two cylinders, which he had assumed merely contained supplies. They emitted a deep humming and ignited all over with glinting lights and displays, as they rose off the ground and turned themselves upright.

The Outlinker boy, Apis, was utterly exhausted and sank to his knees on the muddy ground, but Eldene did not allow him to stay there. She grabbed his arm and began hauling him to his feet.

"We have to keep going. If they catch us, they'll kill us. And they won't do it quickly!"

He stared at her, probably too tired to know what he thought of that possibility. At first she had not understood what was the matter with him, until he'd gasped earlier, "How do you people live with this? How do you manage to spend all your lives in gravity?" Without his exoskeleton he was directly feeling the full effects of a force he had never before experienced.

As she finally wrestled him to his feet, he managed to formulate a response. "Do you think any of them are still alive back there, then?"

"I hope not," Eldene replied, fingering the pistol she had snatched from Speelan as they escaped. She moved in close and hooked an arm around his waist to help him along. Together they staggered on through a dark wilderness of flute grasses and churned mud; hot breezes blowing in behind them, where a hot-metal glow illuminated clouds of smoke and steam so that they appeared like a range of orange mountains — a range from behind which the upper edge of Calypse was rising as a harbinger of morning.

"Where should we head now?" Apis asked.

Eldene scanned around them and did not know what to reply. Their situation seemed hopeless: they had limited oxygen, were miles from anyone who could be considered friendly, and even heading back to their erstwhile captors was now out of the question. Where could they go? Back towards the crater, in the hope of running into their comrades, or towards the fighting in the hope of coming across some of the rebels? These were the questions she was beginning to ponder, when she heard the sound of voices from behind them.

"Keep moving," she hissed at Apis as he showed signs of sagging to the ground again. He too now heard the voices and then an order suddenly barked, followed by silence.

"Theocracy?" he whispered.

Eldene felt the skin on the back of her neck creeping — she had recognized the source of that order. She nodded to Apis as they struggled on.

It seemed the voice must have carried for some distance, for thereafter they heard nothing more until the lightening sky became distinct from the horizon of towering grasses around them. When they next heard something — the sound of someone falling over and cursing until ordered to silence again — it became evident that someone was indeed behind them, and now, in the better light, rapidly drawing closer.

"They're trailing us," whispered Eldene, at first suspecting herself of paranoia, then coming to believe her fears absolutely. How else could it be that this party, led by the one called Aberil, was still so close to them, hours after the godlike obliteration of the landers? "We have to move faster." She looked up into the Outlinker's face, and knew that it wasn't the quality of the light that now gave his yellow skin a greyish tinge, though she did wonder what was producing the appearance of worms writhing underneath that skin. He returned her gaze, his expression apologetic, before something seemed to take hold of him from the inside and shake him violently. He jerked upright and away from her — his eyes gone wide in shock and his skin turning almost orange as it suffused with blood. Then his legs folded and he went down. Eldene tried to heave him upright, but he was no longer the construct of sugar sticks and paper he had described himself as once being — but now heavy with muscle and bone.

"You go on," he gasped, his breathing raw. "I'll tell them you got killed back there." He nodded towards the now fading fire-glow.

Eldene did not like to point out that if someone was experienced enough to track them this far throughout the night, that person would surely be experienced enough to recognize that there were two of them.

"I'm staying with you," she muttered, giving herself the appearance of expertise as she pulled out and checked the magazine of the pistol before slapping it back into place. Glancing around, she saw that moving further along or backwards on this spit of rhubarb-cloaked land would afford them no better cover than at present. She gestured to the tangled flute grass beside them. "We'll go in there."

"You should go on," Apis insisted.

Eldene shoved the pistol back in the belt of her camouflage trousers, and reached down to help him to cover. Seeing her determined expression, he made no further attempt to send her away. It was obvious to Eldene, though, that he did not really want to be left alone. But then, she was staying with him for the very same reason.

The first of the Theocracy soldiers emerged into view, shortly followed by the officer, Speelan. Watching the guard inspect the path she and Apis had flattened through the purple vegetation, Eldene suppressed any hope that this group might head on past them. Their trail was too obvious, what with succulent stems and leaves crushed and oozing sap like blue paint. She also realized that, for survival's sake, she must act first. She raised the pistol and aimed it, but Apis caught her wrist.

"Wait… wait a moment," he said firmly.

She stared at him and saw that he no longer looked so weak and ill. Now there was something gaunt and fierce about him.

He went on, "It knows about threats to its survival, and I bet that was something that Mika did not program in. Before, it just had me operating at the lowest energy level, while it continued rebuilding me. But now it knows."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she hissed.

"When you shoot at them, they'll run for cover. When they go for cover, we must run on and wait for them again."

"You are up to running?"

"With the mycelium… I can."

Now Aberil himself and the Proctor Molat had come into view. Eldene studied Apis for a moment longer, then turned away and raised her pistol again. It was morally wrong to kill, according to tenets of the Satagents and Zelda Smythe, yet when had that ever stopped members of the Theocracy from doing so? With cold calculation Eldene chose the leading soldier, for he was obviously the tracker, and emptied one full disc of five rounds into his torso.

With a horrible grunting sound the man staggered back, the front of his jacket sprouting its insulating fibres, a haze of red exploding out behind him and hinge-ing down his mask as it simultaneously exploded from his mouth. His expression turned bewildered as he tried to retain balance on legs no longer under his control. Finally he collapsed beneath the rhubarb leaves.

Eldene just stared, too stunned, for a moment, to take aim at the others diving for cover. Just pressing her finger down on the electric trigger had achieved this. Shaken, she aimed at the spot where she had seen Aberil drop and scrabble towards a thicket of flute grass, and fired off another disc. To the right, someone stood and brought a weapon to bear. She fired a further disc of five rounds in that direction.